Recent developments in digital technology have spurred the development and deployment of digital video broadcasting services. The digital video broadcasting services, including high quality video programming such high definition (HD) programs, are typically provided by satellite broadcasters, terrestrial broadcasters and cable broadcasters. More recently, digital broadcast programs have also been deployed via the Internet Protocol (IP) by major telecommunication providers.
Video broadcasters have traditionally distributed video broadcasts to viewers using a variety of broadcasting standards, including the analog National Television Standard Committee (NTSC) standard. More recently, with the constant expansion of the number of video broadcast channels, HD video broadcasts and provision of data, all of which have placed a premium on bandwidth for transmission, the distribution of video broadcasts has been achieved via digital standards, including the Advanced Technical Systems Committee (ATSC) standard. Other digital standards that are being used today include the Moving Picture Experts Group H.262 (MPEG-2) standard, the H.264 (MPEG-4) standard and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard.
Digital video broadcasts are transmitted or distributed from the aforementioned video broadcasters via a variety of video distributions systems to an end user's digital set top box (STB) which decodes the digital video signal for display on a video display device (e.g., television). The digital video signal may be received by the STB via a satellite dish, a coaxial cable, a telephone line (including digital subscriber line (DSL)), Ethernet, local and wide area wireless technologies, and the like.
Recent advancements in digital video recording technology in set top boxes have further incorporated digital video recorder (DVR) functionality into the STB for recording digital video broadcasts to a digital storage medium (e.g., hard drive, optical storage, and the like) and playing back the recorded digital video broadcasts to the video display device. The DVR functionality operates using the EPG data for scheduling the recording of particular video broadcasts.
A variety of electronic surveillance systems have been employed for monitoring premises and detecting intruders. Operators of the aforementioned video distribution systems have continuously grappled with integration of different services via the video distribution systems to improve users' experience and therefore retain users.